ALERT member Martine Maron has been helping to lead efforts to slow Australia's alarming high rates of habitat destruction. Here, she gives us an update on actions by leading scientists to slow the loss of Australia's native ecosystems.

The delegates of the conference voted to support a scientists’ declaration on land clearing in Australia. Additional signatories included internationally renowned scientists, including several ALERT members, and ecologists and environmental scientists from across Australia.

“Our native vegetation is crucial to our wildlife, our climate, and the Great Barrier Reef,” said President of the Oceania Section of the Society for Conservation Biology, Professor Richard Kingsford.

“If we continue down this path, the cost to society and the economy will be enormous -- and largely irreversible. We will face higher temperatures, more severe droughts, and see iconic species pushed to extinction”.

These figures place Australia among the world’s worst deforestation hotspots. Although the current minority Queensland government has introduced legislation to try to restore protections for native vegetation, there is no guarantee that it will pass.

Much of that is habitat for threatened species such as Koalas, Red Goshawks, and Glossy Black-Cockatoos.

The scientists’ statement highlighted the impacts of deforestation on climate. In addition to the carbon emissions from tree clearing, research has shown that loss of bushland from eastern Australia has increased temperatures and reduced rainfall. This makes droughts worse and reduces the ability of species to adapt to climate change.

Associate Professor Brendan Wintle of the University of Melbourne presented research showing that species such as the Squirrel Glider relied on the few remaining small patches of habitat in landscape such as New South Wales’ Hunter Valley.

“Important Squirrel Glider habitat in the Hunter Valley is at risk of being destroyed because so much of the habitat it needs has been lost. The Squirrel Glider is one of many unique threatened species that rely on these rarer habitats to exist,” said Wintle.

Other iconic species continue to decline as their habitat is removed and degraded.

“Koalas in Queensland and New South Wales have declined precipitously,” said Adjunct Professor Daniel Lunney of the University of Sydney. “Their populations have halved in Queensland over the past 20 years, and loss of habitat is a key driver. Replacing that habitat is enormously expensive. The most cost-effective option is to leave it in place.”

In the statement, the scientists expressed dismay that Australia had become one of the world’s worst deforestation fronts.

“Things are getting worse, not better -- ever more species are being added to threatened species lists, and more native habitat is being removed every year,” said Richard Kingsford. “The restoration work done by dedicated people across the country is dwarfed by these losses. The battle is being lost”.

Action Needed

The statement called for Australian parliaments and governments, especially those of Queensland and New South Wales, to take action to stop habitat loss and restore fragile landscapes.

“We call for the prevention of a return to the damaging past of high rates of woodland and forest destruction, in order to protect the unique biodiversity and marine environments of which Australia is sole custodian,” the statement said.

Associate Professor Martine Maron is a leading ecologist and member of ALERT, based at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. Here she shares her concerns about Queensland's recent escalation of forest and woodland destruction:

Since 2013, I and other Australian scientists have been warning (see here, here, and here) of the potentially catastrophic consequences that could occur because the previous government in Queensland watered down the state's land-clearing laws, which had until then been largely effective.

And in late 2015, the Queensland government’s own data confirmed our worst fears.

Nearly 300,000 hectares of bushland in Queensland was lost in just one year, mostly for cattle pastures. That’s a three-fold increase in rates of land clearing.

Alarmingly, even endangered old-growth ecosystems are being lost at much higher rates than before.

Crunch time

Legislation to reinstate crucial protections for Queensland’s most vital habitats is about to be introduced into Parliament by the state’s Labor government.

But with Labor having only a minority government -- which needs cooperation from others to get things done -- there is no guarantee that the new protections will pass.

Local challenge with global impacts

What happens in Queensland affects everyone on Earth.

Queensland is home to around half of all of Australia’s largely endemic biodiversity, as well as the iconic Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage site. Australians are also among the world’s highest per-capita emitters of carbon dioxide, the most important of all greenhouse gases.

Surely a wealthy nation such as Australia should be an environmental leader, not an environmental rogue.

And indeed, Australia invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to reduce environmental damage or help ecosystems recover from past damage.

But the benefits of these investments are being dwarfed by rampant loss of habitats happening now in Queensland.

No mucking around in Queensland. They also rip trees out with giant chains.

Neutralizing environmental investment

Yet just one year of accelerating land clearing in Queensland has already removed many more trees than will be painstakingly planted during this entire program.

The Australian government’s Emissions Reduction Fund is paying billions of dollars to reduce carbon emissions from industry.

But the carbon released from Queensland’s latest land clearing is estimated to be 63 million metric tons. This is far more than was purchased under the first round of the Emissions Reduction Fund -- at a cost to taxpayers of 660 million Australian dollars.

Rare and endangered species cannot recover if their habitats are being destroyed faster than they are being restored. But since 2013, the extent of tree planting to restore habitats across Australia is just a tenth of what was cleared in Queensland over the same period.

And to make matters worse, over a third of the land clearing in Queensland is happening in watersheds that drain directly onto the Great Barrier Reef. That means more pollution, sediments, and environmental problems for the Reef and its stunning biodiversity.

And ironically, while threats are growing for Australia's coastal sea-grass and coral-reef ecosystems, the government is spending hundreds of millions trying to reverse the same process. Where is the logic in that?

Australia's most iconic ecosystem, imperiled by pollution and sediments from land clearing.

Prevention is better than cure

It's a no-brainer: It is far more efficient to prevent environmental damage than to try to reverse it later.

And some damage, like the loss of a species, is irreversible. For instance, Queensland's populations of the Koala are falling rapidly, largely because of accelerating woodland clearing.

The last three years have seen environmental protection leap backwards in Queensland -- in a way that has greatly alarmed scientific communities both in Queensland and internationally.

We can only hope that the new Queensland government will fulfill its election promise, and bring back direly needed protections for our natural environments.